Crystal Clear
by damsel-in-stress
Summary: Jareth has become increasingly difficult to live with; us goblins are certainly having trouble. This is the story of an unlucky goblin who was unlucky enough to be around when Jareth was in a mood and her ill-fated, immature quest for revenge.
1. Dancing Light

**Crystal Clear**

_After his defeat and rejection Jareth has become increasingly difficult to live with. Us goblins are certainly having trouble. This is the story of an unlucky goblin who was unlucky enough to be around when Jareth was in a mood._

Notes: Disclaimer etc. etc. No hard feelings Jim Henson, Dennis Lee..?

And thanks to Kore-of-Myth for giving me confidence to actually post this. Thank you. :)

Dancing Light

He turned the crystal over slowly in his hand. Inside the colours danced, flickering from shade to shade. They were not the only things dancing. Inside the crystal the image of a teenage girl with dark hair and a pretty face was clearly visible. She was frolicking about a garden with a little boy.

They looked happy and content and all the things that he, Jareth the Goblin King, was not.

With a dramatic sigh the Goblin King flung the crystal at the wall.

The crystal shattered, showering the goblins nearest him with small, sharp shards. The goblins flinched but remained silent. No one disturbed the King when he was in this mood, not unless they wanted a one-way ticket to the Bog of Eternal Stench.

I, for one, did not.

So I positioned myself in an out of the way alcove and watched the King brood and my fellow goblins squirm.

"How could Sarah have beaten me?" the King asked, searching the crowd of silent goblin with his chilling eyes.

No one answered. Each goblin was probably too busy trying not to catch the King's eye.

Knowing full well the King's fetish for picking on random goblins to terrify, I burrowed into my cubbyhole and prayed not to be noticed.

"You," the Goblin King ordered, pointing at me and beckoning.

No such luck.

I shuffled over to him, dragging my feet behind me and dropped a clumsy curtsy at his feet.

He looked down on me taking in my smudged face and tangled hair. Unconsciously I smoothed down my stained skirts and hid my dirty hands behind my back.

"Name?" he demanded.

"Flotsam," I answered, glad to have a question I knew the answer to.

The King nodded then after a second, during which he probably forget my name completely, he leant forward and whispered to me, "Why do you think Sarah refused me?"

I bit back my initial response and winced as I managed to bite into my lip as well.

"I don't know, your Majesty," I answered finally, picking the answer least likely to get me relocated to the Bog.

"Exactly!" the King exclaimed leaping to his feet.

I jumped back out of his reach but the King seemed to have forgotten me already.

"No one does know!" he declared, spreading his arms in dramatic appeal to his audience.

"Right?" he prompted.

"Oh yes!" the goblins responded, nodding violently. I joined in as well until my brain started rattling.

Jareth flinched at the grinning faces before him, dropping his head in defeat.

"Why do I live with such nitwits?" he asked himself as he marched out of the hall.

The doors slammed shut and the King disappeared down the corridor. The goblins breathed a collective sigh of relief and returned to chatting and screaming and fighting and laughing as usual.

…

Why am I always in the wrong place at the wrong time?

It happened with the king yesterday and today I was wandering aimlessly around minding my own business when suddenly…

"Hey, come 'ere!"

I spun around and saw my uncle hurrying towards me carrying a cup full of bizarrely coloured liquid.

"Take this to the King," he told me.

Confused, I asked what it was.

"His morning drink, just do it, please!" he begged.

"Why me?" I gasped.

I was distraught, the King is very temperamental in the mornings, even more than usual, and he tends to take it out on goblins that disturb him, or so much as breath too loudly in his presence.

Goblins had been known to suddenly find themselves a head shorter and that didn't appeal to me in the slightest.

"Why me!" I asked again.

"Rather you than me," my uncle said and thrust the cup at me before running off as fast as his stubby legs could carry him.

So much for family loyalty, I thought.

Slowly and uncomfortably I walked to the Kings door, then, after mentally composing my will, I raised a shaky hand and knocked.

"Enter," Jareth's voice ordered from inside.

Then reluctantly I obeyed.

* * *

_A/N: Please review and tell me what you think. :)_


	2. Broken Glass

Broken Glass

The Goblin King sat on the opposite side of the room, slumped in a large chair, with his head in his gloved hands.

He didn't look up as I walked in and I felt a surge of hope that if I was quiet I may get out of this with all my vital parts still attached.

I slunk across the room, weaving in and out of various objects strewn out on the Kings floor in a way that reminded me more of a bird's nest than part of a King's suite.

Reaching the King's side, I quietly started to put the drink down. As I did so my unfortunate foot connected with pile of books beside the chair that fell onto a large brass bell with a tremendous clang.

Wincing, I looked up at the King. He was looking down at me with a faintly disgusted expression on his face.

"Your morning drink, Your Majesty," I mumbled, holding the cup at arms length and stepping as far away from the King as possible with out rousing suspicion.

The Goblin King raise one amused eyebrow then reached out to take the cup.

"Not poisoned I hope?" he whispered, his voice as frightening as his eyes.

I froze, unsure how to react. The cup hovered between us as I tried to work out whether he was joking or not.

Fear and embarrassment crept up my throat and I tried to swallow it back down but I only managed to nearly swallow my tongue.

Choking, I struggled to maintain my composure and answer sensibly but it wasn't helped by Jareth raising his other eyebrow and smiling slightly at me floundering before him.

Then I dropped the drink.

It shattered on the hard floor sending colourful liquid everywhere - including the King.

I leapt backwards peering at Jareth to see his reaction. It wasn't good.

Frightened, I continued struggling backwards and collided with a large glass cabinet, which, despite my best attempts to stop it, crashed to the floor catapulting glass and crystals into the air.

I added my screams to the cacophony of shattering glass and retreated to the edge of the room causing numerous damage to furniture on the way.

It was pretty bad planning on somebody's part that this room was made nearly solely of glass and crystal.

As the dust settled I cowered in the corner waiting for the Goblin King's reaction to my destructive antics.

First he looked surprised then a queer mixture of rage and amusement. Then it seemed like he was trying to decide if I'd look better as a toad or a frog. Personally I'd prefer neither so I ran.

I ran like my life depended on it, which it probably did because as I ran I felt a spell following me.

I desperately tried to outrun it but inevitably it caught up with me.

I was plunged into complete darkness.

And I screamed and screamed and screamed.

…

Finally I stopped screaming. Even I didn't have the lungpower to scream forever so eventually I lapsed into panting silence.

I gulped back several deep breaths and tried to gulp back my fear as well.

It's not that I'm scared of the dark; I just dislike it, honestly.

I reminded myself of that as I tried to calm my shredding nerves.

Eventually my eyes became accustomed to the gloom and I peered around my surroundings, trying to get my bearings.

I was in a small cave-like room that could have been anywhere, and then it dawned on me. I was in an oubliette.

Jareth the Goblin King had sent me to an oubliette.

Well it was better than the Bog of Eternal Stench. He'd probably sent me here instead of the Bog because I'd amused him. Well, it was nice to be appreciated.

All I could appreciate right now was fear sprinkled with annoyance and served with a big dollop of anger.

I am not a happy goblin.

If I ever get out of this hole Jareth is going to pay.

...


	3. Plots in the Dark

Plots in the Dark

I was floating down a dimly lit corridor to a bright golden light. Beautiful music was playing somewhere and fluffy clouds were travelling past at eye level.

"Am I dead?" I asked the light, my voice pleasingly melodic.

"Now you don't expect me to remember do you?" a gruff voice demanded cutting through my fantasy.

The music skidded to a halt, the clouds disappeared with a pop and the light winked out.

Frowning, I woke up to find myself lying on the hard stone floor, numb with cold and acutely hungry.

There was someone peering at me out of the gloom.

With a squawk I leapt to my feet and raised my hands in front of my face in self-defence.

He stepped out of the shadows and I saw he was a human.

He was old, unnaturally so, with a beard so long he tripped over it as he walked, wearing tattered clothes and smelling worse than a pile of goblin socks on washday.

"Who are you?" I demanded.

"How am I supposed to remember that?" the man replied.

"What's your name? How did you get here? How long have you been here?" I asked.

"I don't remember," he answered sadly. I realised he had a faint welsh accent.

Then the man stepped towards me and I backed away with my hands held out in front of me in case the man was dangerous.

"Stay away from me!" I ordered picking up a stick and waving it threateningly.

The affect was spoiled as in the near darkness I hit the stick against the wall and it snapped. The broken half hit me in the face and knocked me sprawling on the ground.

"Are you alright?" the old man asked.

"I'll ask the questions!" I snapped, struggling to my feet and trying to look as dignified as I could.

"Who are you?" I asked again, trying to sort things out in my head now even more befuddled by the blow from the stick.

"I can't remember," the man replied slowly like he was talking to a small child.

"Have you been here so long you've forgotten?" I asked incredulously.

The old man looked thoughtful. "Maybe, I forget," he answered.

"So you mean me no harm?" I asked warily.

"Why would I," he replied, "You're just a goblin."

Affronted I drew myself up to my full height, about knee high to the old man, and changed the subject.

"My name's Flotsam, what should I call you?"

"Why would you want to call me anything?" he replied.

Annoyed that he kept answering my questions with questions I snapped back, "Lots of reasons! Like if I needed to talk to you, say about the weather, or ask you something like the time of day, or tell you something, or confess something, or warn you about something like an invasion of grasshoppers, or the black death, or just get your attention, or tell you to go away, or tell you to come back, or tell someone else about you, or ask someone else about you, or -"

"Enough!" the old man shouted, while I'd been chattering I hadn't noticed him getting more and more despairing, "Get me out of here!" he finally shrieked.

I blinked.

Then blinked again.

We were in pleasant sunshine on a small grass verge. Birds sung above me, beside me was the entrance to an oubliette and underneath me was the old man.

"Get off!" he cried and I let him roll me off.

I was in shock.

"You're a sorcerer!" I gasped, realising the only way we could have suddenly escaped the oubliette.

"I am?" he replied confused, "I forget."

Ignoring him, I thought for a moment.

"If you could magic yourself out of there at any time why didn't you do it before?" I asked.

"I must have had a very good reason for not doing something that obvious," the old man laughed.

Then a crease appeared in his forehead and his smile dripped off his face, "I can't remember it though."

As the old man frowned in thought I ignored him and looked around at our surroundings, taking in the forbidding trees, dark flowers and gurgling brook.

I couldn't help a gurgle of laughter escaping my lips as I realised we were just a stones throw away from the Goblin King's Castle.

With a grin I settled down on the grass and began to plot.

…

We hid behind a gnarled tree near to the entrance to the castle.

In the gathering gloom, I tried to explain my plan to the old man before the drizzling rain became a torrent.

"Do you understand now?" I asked after explaining my plan for the fourth consecutive time.

The old man nodded.

"Good," I said, "Lets go-"

"Wait, can you explain it one more time?" the man asked.

I grimaced and counted to ten.

"You pretend to be a great sorcerer," I began, a nod from the old man. "You pretend to have an urgent message from the Seelie Court." Another nod. "We get in, kidnap Jareth and throw him in the Bog of Eternal Stench, my revenge is complete and I hold no further grudges, ok."

"Right," the old man mumbled.

"Yes, simple but effective, now lets go."

So we went.

Beside me, my sorcerer shifted uncomfortably in his new clothes.

He looked unhappy in them but I thought my work was effective. He actually looked like a sorcerer once I'd cleaned the grime of him, tamed his beard and sowed up some of the more gaping holes in his robe. Some had been in quite unflattering places.

Then we reached the castle entrance. Only one small goblin guard guarded it so I was hopeful.

Praying that the old man would remember his part I herded him up to the guard and prodded him in the back to make him talk.

There was silence.

The guard looked expectantly at the old man.

I shifted uncomfortably. "Talk," I hissed.

Then a bizarre change came over the old man.

He seemed to grow in height, a light came on in his dull eyes and his whole personality seemed to shift.

"Let me pass, knave, I have an urgent message for your Master," he declared in a voice I never thought would have come out of the old man.

The guard looked surprised. So did I.

"Sorry ya 'onour, no one's allowed in at the moment, orders ya see," the goblin managed to mumble in response.

"Orders!" The old man evidently didn't like the answer.

A few moments later the guard found himself upside down in a tree several miles north and I found myself having to run to catch up with the old man as he strode down the castle corridors.

I was startled by the change from the stooped old man to the regal sorcerer but I had other things on my mind.

Stage one of my plan was complete: we were in.

...


	4. Shattered Dreams

Shattered Dreams

Jareth the Goblin King reclined on his throne with one leg flung uncaringly over the arm and the other pulled up to his chest with a drink resting on the knee.

With one hand he held a crystal into which he was staring and with the other hand he steadied the glass of bright green drink that interestingly sported an outrageously long multi-colour straw.

He was evidently in a good mood because the goblins around him were rowdy and playing up as usual.

No one was expecting anything out of the ordinary to happen.

I shut the door I'd been looking through quietly and returned to the shadows nearby to talk to the old man.

"I'm ready," the old man told me as I approached.

Then without elaboration he walked away from me towards the throne room. Perplexed, I followed trying not to be so worried.

…

The old oak doors flew open, crashing against the walls so hard that flakes fell down from the ceiling.

The light blew out and a sudden wind picked up filling the gloom with wailing.

The old man walked through the dust and shadow towards Jareth's throne ignoring the startled faces surrounding him.

His robes billowed in the wind and thunder sounded from somewhere making the goblins jump higher each time.

Even Jareth looked slightly startled by my sorcerer's ostentatious entrance.

All eyes where turned to the old man so no one noticed as I slipped in through the door and hid behind Jareth's chair.

In the centre of the room my sorcerer had paused and was melodramatically pointing at Jareth with a look of scorn on his face.

I frowned unsure what he was going to do.

"Hail Jareth who calls himself King of these halls," the old man called, his voice dripping with malice that shocked me. "You are a liar and a cheat and not fit to rule here!"

There was a stunned silence. Even the goblins were quiet.

At least his words were to the point, I thought, but what point? This was defiantly not part of my plan.

"What are you doing?" I hissed at the old man, "This isn't part of the plan!"

He ignored me and continued denouncing Jareth as weak and pathetic and many other things, several of which I didn't even know what they meant.

"I tried to remove you once before but the Seelie court thought otherwise. Perhaps this time they will have no choose, after all what are they against the Unseelie court."

The old man raised his arms and I half expected the hordes of hell to rise up out of the ground but thankfully they didn't. It was probably just a matter of time.

Another dramatic change was coming over the old man. His beard bizarrely changed from white to black and his eyes began to glow like white-hot coals.

I gulped desperately trying to swallow the truth of who my sorcerer really was. It didn't go down well.

"Fight me Goblin King or I shall simply kill you like the coward you are," the sorcerer shouted over the sound of the magic storm he had cooked up.

Jareth looked understandably taken aback, frankly even I hadn't considered this happening when I'd planned my revenge.

The old man raised his right hand and made a curious gesture - Jareth was lifted off his feet and flung at the wall.

Luckily the soft heads of his subjects cushioned his fall.

Cried of 'ouch' and 'ouf' from the flattened goblins rose above the sounds of the storm and drowned out my shouts. No one paid any attention to me hiding behind the sorcerer.

"Stop it!" I demanded dragging at the sorcerer's sleeve. "This isn't right!"

He ignored me too.

When I got too annoying he simply tossed me to one side.

I crashed through a group of goblins who were standing frozen with surprise where they'd been when the sorcerer came in. Finally I smashed into the King's vacated throne then rolled over half a dozen times, running over several other goblins on the way then stopped when I hit the far wall.

After mastering my extreme dizzy spell I managed to focus on what was happening.

The sorcerer was approaching Jareth with madness and murder in his eyes. Jareth was still trying to untangle himself from his squashed subjects.

"This is not what's supposed to be happening!" I shrieked and finally managing to attract a little attention. Jareth looked at me with confusion in his mix-matched eyes.

"Help!" I appealed to him but he was in an even worse position than me.

The sorcerer had the King by the throat, literally, and there wasn't a lot we could do about it.

I screamed, my voice coming out high and scared, "This isn't what I wanted!"

But it appeared no one cared what I wanted.

The room was in chaos.

The goblins seemed to have shaken the spell that bound them in place before and were running around screaming and getting in each other's way. The magic storm raged, causing confusion. Someone had scared the chickens, who were now running riot causing even more damage than the storm.

"Stop it!" I shrieked, running at the sorcerer.

Without thinking I body-slammed him, taking his legs out and smashing us both into the wall. Our own momentum carried us crashing through the wall and drastically into a room full of mirrors.

There was an explosion of breaking glass as we met the mirrors at full speed.

I was thrown away from the sorcerer colliding with a mirror that shattered all over me.

Confused and in pain, I staggered around and hit another mirror with a beautiful silver frame.

I had just enough time to see the sorcerer rise up out of a smashed mirror and begin to walk away (he seemed disgustingly unaffected by his close shave with the mirrors) then the tall ornate, silver framed, gold edged, jewel encrusted mirror fell forward and shattered on my head.

Everything went black.

* * *

A/N: _Please review. Feedback is always appreciated. And if anyone thinks Flotsam should be dead at the moment I'll take the hint... :)_


	5. The Big Bang

The Big Bang

I woke up and wished I hadn't.

I felt like I'd been through a tumble dryer; my head ached indescribably and I hurt in place I didn't even know existed.

In front of me I could see a goblin girl about my age with torn clothes and growing bruises.

I felt sorry for her.

I turned over and saw the girl again. It dawned on me eventually that it was me I could see reflected in the shards of broken glass.

I felt sorry for me.

Shouting and screaming was coming from the throne room and I finally managed to coax myself to move in that direction.

It took a while for my scrambled mind to take in what I was looking at and frankly I didn't like what I saw.

The Sorcerer danced in the centre of the room cackling like a manic. The Goblin King was backed into a corner, his normal pristine appearance was ruffled and a drop of blood slid down his check onto his shirt.

That would probably stain.

Goblins were hiding all around the room, occasionally shrieking and running in circles if a bolt of lightening hit too close to their backsides.

How had my petty revenge gone so drastically wrong?

I'd let a mad sorcerer into the castle and now we were all in trouble. I had to do something.

Desperately I grabbed the goblin nearest me, a weedy specimen universally known as Tadpole, and shouted at him.

"Help him!" I screamed pointing at Jareth.

Tadpole shook his head then jumped several feet in the air as a lightening bolt hit him in the behind.

"Someone do something!" I appealed to the goblins around me, but no one answered.

The wall beside me exploded as a bolt of magic hit it then I had to leap out of the way as the floor below disintegrated.

The whole castle was falling apart.

All I could do was watch in sick fascination as Jareth and the Sorcerer threw bolt after bolt of magic at each other. Crystals were shooting everywhere and I had to hide behind the fallen throne to escape them.

The fight had moved away from the door and goblins now had a clear run. They were going to go and leave their King to battle it out alone.

I can't say I blame them.

Then something happened that changed everything.

The Sorcerer sent a shot at Jareth but the aim went wide, the spell exploded just outside the throne room in the centre of the castle kitchens.

Food went everywhere, whole meals ready for eating went up in smoke, a years worth of supplies of sweets disappeared forever and even the pet chickens who usually roamed around in there were roasted alive.

The goblins went wild.

Bellowing war cries, they pushed past a startled Goblin King and attacked an even more surprised Sorcerer. Armed only with half cooked chickens and root vegetables they began forcing the Sorcerer out of the throne room and towards the exit. The Sorcerer seemed powerless to stop them.

Could this day get any more bizarre?

I followed the mob of angry goblins as they bullied and bashed the Sorcerer out of the Castle and through the city. It took them a matter of seconds to have him out on his ear.

He seemed as surprised as I was.

Finally the Sorcerer gathered himself and began to fight back but Jareth was there.

He produced a handful of crystals and with a peculiar Goblin King grin threw them in the Sorcerer's face. At roughly the same time the Sorcerer sent a bolt of magic at Jareth.

The crystals and the magic met in the middle.

The result was interesting.

Time slowed to a crawl. Coloured light danced across the sky and a sound like the breaking of a thousand mirrors exploded in the air.

Thrown backwards by the force, I crashed into other goblins doing the same thing. We were all flung backwards, landing in a heap on the muddy ground.

I had just enough time to see the Sorcerer and the Goblin King be thrown in the opposite direction and land splat into the middle of the Bog of Eternal Stench.

Then everything went black. Again.

...


	6. The Smell of Revenge

The Smell of Revenge

I woke up, much to my surprise, and decided I must be dead.

Only being dead and in Hell would have you stuck under a gang of sweaty goblins.

Actually maybe I wasn't dead. I'm sure being dead would hurt a lot less.

It took several minutes for all the goblins to climb off me. Then after escaping the super goblin sandwich, I lay still in the sun glad for the calm after the storm.

After a quick limb check I decided everything important was still attached then rolled over to see the state everyone else was in.

A large shape loomed out of the Bog, it was dripping with grime and stank worse than anything I had ever encountered, and I'm a goblin so that's saying something.

The goblins around me let out a strangled gasp and flinched away from the thing coming out of the Bog. Then it spoke, "If someone doesn't help me out of this grime in ten seconds all of you will wish you'd been born rodents, (not that some of you don't resemble rodents) but the threat still stands."

It was a voice we all recognised. I tried to hide my grin behind my hand but my hand was already covering my nose.

Jareth the Goblin King had been knocked into the Bog of Eternal Stench.

Revenge is sweet.

Even if the smell coming off Jareth is anything but sweet.

* * *

_A/N: I'll stop myself from writing 'The End' in big letters because it might not be the end of Flotsam's story? - It is the end of this part though!_

_So thanks to everyone for reading and a big thank you to everyone who has and everyone who is going to review! I really appreciate it! :D_

_A final very big thanks with a cherry on top to Kore-of-Myth for Beta-reading this fic - so if any of you were wondering about my sudden lack of chronic grammar errors that would be why - Thank you Kore! _

_Till the next time._

_~Damsel _


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